Each summer has historically been a wasteland for Parenthood fans who juuuust got off the anxiousness of wondering whether their show has returned. But this year, there was Monica Potter being delightfully real in yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter Roundtable (click here... Full Review

Ben Affleck was in Rhode Island for the weekend where he received an honourary doctorate in Fine Arts from Brown University. He’s Dr Affleck now. Would you change all your business cards and signature block on your email? I totally would. I might not insist that people call me Dr Lui, but it would be nice. Full Review

I apologise in advance.
For many of you, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green was one of the best books of 2012. I liked it ok. But I didn’t love it. I didn’t cry. I tried to cry, I did. But it just wasn’t there for me. And I’m sorry. Maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of YA? Green’s Looking For Alaska and Will Grayson, Will Grayson were better, in my mind. Full Review

Click here to read my review of Divergent and here for Insurgent. I am obsessed with the story. They started on the screenplay last year. Now I guess they must be closer because Deadline... Full Review

Who?
If you don’t know, congratulations. Because you obviously haven’t made the mistake of reading Fifty Shades of Grey. I envy you. I want to UN-read it. Can you imagine if un-reading was possible? I could UN-read Ethan Hawke’s books. And read Harry Potter again for the very first time?
Anyway, Fifty Shades Of Grey is the story of Anastasia Steele who falls in love with Christian Grey who is super f-cked up and afraid of commitment and only wants to dick her in his special sex room and doesn’t want a relationship but of course then he falls in love with her because she’s not really that special, having just graduated from college with no particular distinction and no defined skills and no real personality. Full Review

Book Review: Insurgent by Veronica RothFor a refresher on Divergent, click here to revisit my review from last year. There are spoilers ahead. And, well, there’s some sh-t you probably don’t want spoiled, especially with this story, so you may want to click away and come back after you’ve burned through the book which is due out this week. Full Review

L's Rating:

Here’s Jennifer Lawrence all over New York the last couple days on a final hard push for The Hunger Games which, as mentioned yesterday, could open as high as $120 million but probably no lower than $80 million which is, obviously, massive. As a result, shares in Lionsgate are exploding, up almost 30% over the last month and almost 90% in 2012 alone. Full Review

Big news in the publishing world today: JK Rowling will release a new novel for adults with a different publisher and not with Bloomsbury which published all the Potters. That’s the only thing we know. More details are coming later this year including exactly when the book will come out, what it’s called, and what it’ll be about. Full Review

My favourite book of the year. Forrest is an awesomely gifted writer. It’s not just the story, but the way she tells it, the words that describe it, so that you can feel so acutely her joy and her sadness and her gratefulness for the person who helped her go forward. I’ve probably read this book 3 or 4 times this year just to review some of Forrest’s most beautiful passages. Full Review

One day I’d like to get a liveblog going with Duana and Sarah to discuss or debate the whole Movies vs TV argument. The quality is on television these days, no doubt. But the prestige, the prestige is still, always, in film. They ALL want to be in film. It’s a hierarchy that they, themselves, the Hollywood players, live and die by. Full Review

Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling With this, it becomes official. It has been whispered in the hallways of your work or school, you have remarked on it over drinks. But with the publication of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) the zeitgeist has officially rolled over, such that … Being able to say you were some brand of geek is now essential for future success. Full Review

L's Rating:

Book Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern I’ve been thinking here in the Maldives how much I would have enjoyed The Night Circus on the beach. How I would have ripped through it the way a beach book should read. How it would have possibly cost me a sunburn. You don’t stop and savour and take your time with The Night Circus. Full Review

L's Rating:

Have you read Kevin Wilson’s The Family Fang? I finished it a few weeks ago. It is hilariously imagined, hysterical in parts, and uncomfortably disturbing throughout: the Fangs are already a reality; you can see it on TV. And worse still, though perhaps that’s the point, people can’t recognise themselves in the story. Full Review

Not meant to be a classics list (there are more than enough of those), but a catalogue of (for the most part) modern reads that will be parked on my bookshelf forever. And like the Freebie Five, it will be shifted, adjusted, and modified accordingly.
Would love to know your list too – please do send and share recommendations. Full Review